My only reaction to all of this is that there should be a long German word to describe a feeling of overwhelming rage combined with a sort of boredom that comes from realizing that the rage-inducing events are so commonplace as to be barely worthy of note.

Honestly, the most interesting thing I see in the news is Paul Krugman’s piece crowing over the fact that there is (he says) no inflation resulting from billions upon billions of QE. I just think we should bookmark it today because we’ll be darkly chuckling about it at some point in the not too distant future. That’s the best I can do. Y’all are welcome to comment on any of the topics above.

Should I just go ahead and post my “Halbig: Obama Loses” post now? It’s ready to go. Just waiting for actual events to catch up.

Democrats who oppose changing the law to allow quicker removals of families and unaccompanied young people illegally crossing the southwestern border into the U.S. often argue that those entering the country illegally are entitled to a “day in court.”

The illegal immigrants “should be given their days in court,” said Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Thursday. “The kids should have their day in court,” said Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro before a White House meeting this week. Young people should be given “a meaningful day in court to protect their rights under our laws,” added Democratic Rep. Luis Gutierrez.

Now, new numbers released by the House Judiciary Committee show the “vast majority” of unaccompanied minors seeking asylum are granted it before even appearing before a judge. “Information from U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) that shows 65 percent of unaccompanied alien minors’ asylum applications have been immediately approved by asylum officers in Fiscal Year 2014,” says a Judiciary Committee statement. “And this is just the first bite of the apple. Many more cases can be approved later. Where an asylum officer does not approve the application, it is then referred to an immigration judge where the applicant can try again. If that fails, they can continue to appeal their case.”

The tens of thousands of kids streaming in to the country know what to say. They have been told. They aren’t going anywhere.

UPDATE x2: This is odd as well: Obama administration says territories not subject to ObamaCare. I don’t follow their logic, as the law actually provides that territories are treated the same as states. Still, this seems worth noting. Time to move to the Virgin Islands?

39 Responses to “Blogger Must Come Up With Non-Halbig Post Yet Again”

My only reaction to all of this is that there should be a long German word to describe a feeling of overwhelming rage combined with a sort of boredom that comes from realizing that the rage-inducing events are so commonplace as to be barely worthy of note.

Having taken technical German for scientists in the last millennium, I am sure there is, but I don’t know it. If no one comes up with one within a few days and I have time I’ll consult with a few German speaking folk (at least better than I) and try to come up with one.
But as I think about it, I’m pretty sure someone will come up with a well-researched attempt before I get to it (not naming names). 😉
Then nk can claim it originated from the Greek. 😉 😉

The Territories, though many have created exchanges, do not have “State established” exchanges, therefore any subsidy would be also illegal – subsidies that make the policies affordable to the vast majority of residents in those territories.
Oops!

There is in all this “dense packed” bad news, some cause for satisfaction that I will be 77 next birthday and will probably wave goodbye to all this before the bubble pops. It’s coming soon and I may have a race on my hands. It’s pleasant to remember what this country was like in the 1940s and 50s. If I start to feel too optimistic, I only have to read Huffington Post.

More seriously, this overwhelming chaos in the world is why I mentioned the ongoing and worsening Ebola outbreak (by far the worst ever already) in West Africa the other day. Samaritan’s Purse has taken over the effort in Liberia so Doctor’s without Borders can concentrate their efforts in Guinea and Sierra Leone. (Yes, Doctors without borders is about as left as an organization can get, but they are the experts in handling Ebola, and I have never heard of any other group until now that took primary responsibility for dealing with an Ebola outbreak).

VDH expressed all the rage I feel in a strikingly lucid non-rage-y article. I am comforted that someone like him, whose intellect and whose sense of history I respect, sees things very much the way I do –and additionally has the stature, space and media bully pulpit to express it.

Just a quick thing. As it stands right now contrary to Krystal Ball on MSNBC or any other US news source, no American was on the flight. That was also confirmed as if midnight Pacific Time yesterday/today (18JUL)

I mean, even if their declaration of independence was entirely spurious, merely declaring ones independence doesn’t make one a terrorist. How about that place in Denmark that declared independence back in the ’70s or so, and the Danes decided to humor them. They’re not terrorists, are they? So what did the eastern Ukranian separatists do to earn the terrorist label?

If there was an award given to bloggers for particularly brilliant posts/comments, I would nominate this paragraph:

“My only reaction to all of this is that there should be a long German word to describe a feeling of overwhelming rage combined with a sort of boredom that comes from realizing that the rage-inducing events are so commonplace as to be barely worthy of note.”

Well that dual citizenship thing tripped me up. Besides my Google fu and Bing-rate is weak this morning. Doing a search of MH17 and passengers takes you to all the big media in the various countries talking of who is dead and the Media doing thier best Don Henley impression. That is except the American media who are sticking to the 23 dead story like Obama sticks to the non – scandal borders are secure all is well line.

Notice the lack of america being called a christian nation lately. I wonder why? I guess it is difficult to claim this is a christian nation in one breath and throw the children back into the rio grande river in the next! Even for limbo hannity or o’reilly!

Honestly, the most interesting thing I see in the news is Paul Krugman’s piece crowing over the fact that there is (he says) no inflation resulting from billions upon billions of QE. I just think we should bookmark it today because we’ll be darkly chuckling about it at some point in the not too distant future. That’s the best I can do.

—

Quantitative easing has taken place over the space of five years and change. I think if that was going to generate much inflation in and of itself it would have done so by now. Banks are sitting on a mess of excess reserves so the money multiplier is quite low. The question would be can the Fed correctly calibrate changes in the rate it pays on reserves with the rate of bond sales from its store so that you do not have a rapid expansion of M1 and M2.

The bill under consideration is called the Federal Reserve Accountability and Transparency Act. (That’s right: FRAT.) To be fair to an otherwise dreadful bill, accountability and transparency are worthy objectives, and FRAT does include some reasonable ideas, such as trimming the news blackouts before and after meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee. But it also includes some corkers, such as requiring public disclosures—in advance—before entering into international negotiations, disclosures that could make such negotiations next to impossible. How would you like to play your poker hand open?

But the meat-and-potatoes of the House bill has little to do with either transparency or accountability. Instead, it seeks to intrude on the Fed’s ability to conduct an independent monetary policy, free of political interference.

As the title of Section 2 puts it, FRAT would impose “Requirements for Policy Rules of the Federal Open Market Committee.” A “rule” in this context means a precise set of instructions—often a mathematical formula—that tells the Fed how to set monetary policy. Strictly speaking, with such a rule in place, you don’t need a committee to make decisions—or even a human being. A handheld calculator will do.

In the debate over such rules, two have attracted the most attention. More than 50 years ago, Milton Friedman famously urged the Fed to keep the money supply growing at a constant rate—say, 4% or 5% per year—rather than varying money growth to influence inflation or unemployment

About two decades ago, Stanford economist John Taylor began plumping for a different sort of rule, one which forces monetary policy to respond to changes in the economy—but mechanically, in ways that can be programmed into a computer. While hundreds of “Taylor rules” have been considered over the years, FRAT would inscribe Mr. Taylor’s original 1993 version into law as the “Reference Policy Rule.” The law would require the Fed to pick a rule, and if their choice differed substantially from the Reference Policy Rule, it would have to explain why. All this would be subject to audit by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), with prompt reporting to Congress.

In a town like Washington, the message to the Fed would be clear: Depart from the original Taylor rule at your peril. Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen understands this and, as she made clear in her semiannual testimony to the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, opposes the bill.

So what is this rule that FRAT would turn into holy writ? It’s a simple equation, which starts by establishing a baseline federal-funds rate that is two percentage points higher than inflation; that’s about 3.5% now. It then adds to that baseline one-half of the amount by which inflation exceeds its 2% target (that “excess” is now roughly minus 0.5%). Next, it adds one-half the percentage amount by which gross domestic product exceeds an estimate of potential GDP (that gap is controversial but is perhaps minus 4% today). Thus Taylor’s mechanical rule wants the current fed-funds rate to be about 3.5 – 0.25 – 2.0 = 1.25%—which is vastly higher than the actual near-zero rate.

Fed staff could no doubt concoct an alternative rule that instructed the FOMC to set the fed-funds rate close to zero today, and the committee could pretend it was using that rule. That’s transparency?
But there is a deeper problem. The Fed has not used the fed-funds rate as its principal monetary policy instrument since it hit (almost) zero in December 2008. Instead, its two main policy instruments have been “quantitative easing,” which is now ending, and “forward guidance,” which means guiding markets by using words to describe future policy intentions. If words are the Fed’s main policy instrument, how is the FOMC supposed to set them according to a rule? And how can the GAO determine whether that rule resembles the “Reference Policy Rule”?

The Taylor rule probably would give the Fed sensible instructions in normal times. But what about when the world is far from normal? The Fed claimed to be using Friedman’s money growth rule during the tumultuous disinflation of 1979-82—with miserable results. Luckily for all of us, the Taylor rule wasn’t tried during the 2008-09 financial crisis. That could have been disastrous, effectively tying the Fed’s hands just when extraordinary monetary stimulus was most needed. Should we now bet the ranch that the world will remain placid forever?

The number of patients with drug-resistant TB (DR-TB), which is harder to diagnose and requires two years of arduous treatment, is growing at an alarming rate.

An estimated 9,300 people contract DR-TB in Myanmar each year, but only a few hundred have received treatment. In 2012, in a pilot program in conjunction with the Ministry of Health, MSF enrolled 82 DR-TB patients.

…On Saturday, the organization announced that the government had allowed it to resume operations in a number of regions, but not in Rakhine State, where the majority of the predominantly Buddhist country’s disenfranchised Muslim Rohingya minority is concentrated.

Since 2012, the state, home to an estimated 800,000 stateless Rohingya, has seen outbreaks of communal violence that have killed hundreds and left 140,000 displaced….

…But Ye Htut, spokesman for Myanmar President Thein Sein, said the organization had been banned from the state for consistently showing favoritism towards the Rohingya — a stateless group Myanmar’s government does not recognize as a legitimate ethnic minority, but regards instead as interlopers from neighboring Bangladesh…

…Reports have speculated that the ban was triggered by MSF statements contradicting the official government’s account of a recent massacre alleged to have occurred in the Rakhine township of Maungdaw in January.

The U.N. and human rights groups claim at least 40 Rohingya Muslims were killed by state security forces and ethnic Rakhine, with the MSF claiming it treated 22 people in the area for weapon wounds….

So, the Mexican government issues 3 day transit passes for Central Americans to illegally enter the US, and then they turn themselves in and demand asylum, which is usually granted, unless they have gang tattoos or drug tracks or some such.

And, once granted, they become legal immigrants and are nearly impossible to remove.

Obama has basically decided that his presidency is over when the new Senate sits, so he’s going for every sleazy ratfuque thing he can do before then. I really hope the people revolt and every Dem who can lose, loses. That would give the Republicans 60 seats and then we CAN talk about impeachment. Maybe even a double impeachment.

So, the Mexican government issues 3 day transit passes for Central Americans to illegally enter the US, and then they turn themselves in and demand asylum, which is usually granted, </I.

No it's not usually granted, (less than 50%) but hearings are granted, and this drags on for years. Right now hearing dates are getting to be even two years in the future.

unless they have gang tattoos or drug tracks or some such.

They might be even more entitled to asylum, if they are opposed to the gang, and can’t leave it.

There is another status very helpful for minors. If they are placed under the jurisdiction of a family court, and someone in the USA is granted custody, they qualify for a green card, (I guess so long as they remain under the jurisdiction of the family court.

They certainly won’t be sent away without the concurrence of the family court, if they are still under age..

There are also U visas and T status. U visas, limited to 10,000 a year, are of people who have suffered severe physical or mental abuse as a result of certain criminal actiivity, and co-operate with investigators. I think hat’s mostly physical abuse and forced prostitution. After 3 years they can get a green card.

“T” status is granted to people trafficked to the United States if they were trafficked to engage in commercial sex or forced labor. (You don’t want people to be afariid to go to the policem now do you?_ After 3 years tghey can get permanent residence.)

Did Krugman write anything about how the minimum wage “needs” to go up?
…because the minimum wage is supposed to provide a certain amount of purchasing power, so if it has to go up, there’s either more consumerism (it’s supposed to buy more) or less purchasing power (in other words, inflation).
And less is getting bought.

Alastor- Krugman has a pattern of claiming nonsense, even more than the typical Elites.
He wrote about how the VA was a model healthcare system ~3 years ago (since the Clinton administration).
My guess is that what happpened under Clinton didn’t make it better but just made it easier to hide.

1) There aren’t really too many competitive primaries now in the Democratic Party. There’s a lot of pre-picking and forcing out.

2) Where was Charles Schumer when mayor Bloomberg wanted to get non-partisan elections in New York City?

3) The true reason for partisanship in Congress is not primaries picking extremists, but the centralization of campaign funding, with party leaders doling out money.

4) Senator Schumer surely knows why Eric Cantor really lost, and it was mostly lying in his campaign and wafflinmg on issues.

He writes:

The reasons behind the shocking primary defeat last month of Representative
Eric Cantor of Virginia, who was then leader of the Republican majority in the House, are still being debated, but there is no doubt that his defeat highlighted the pernicious effects of the predominant “winner-take-all” party primary system

What “winner-take all? Eric Cantor lost because there was no runoff?? What’s he talking about?

5. He praises the “open-primary” system for having saved Thad Cochran

California, which probably mirrors the diversity of America more than any other state, was racked by polarization until voters approved a constitutional amendment in 2010 that adopted a “top-two” primary system. The move has had a moderating influence on both parties and a salutary effect on the political system and its ability to govern. Louisiana has used a similar system since the 1970s, and Washington State since 2008. Voters in Colorado and Oregon will consider proposals later this year.

If it works in these states, it can work in others. In late June, Senator Thad Cochran, a conservative Mississippi Republican, won a runoff primary over an even more conservative challenger, Chris McDaniel, with the support of Democrats, many of them African-American, who crossed over to vote for him.